Thank you Library Online Chat!

After searching for Dr. Jenson’s article on all (3) different ERIC databases I decided to swallow my pride and ask for help. Much to my surprise the librarian who helped me was actually really cool and patience. Of course they found the article on the first try (I was in my dorm room) and it took me almost five times until the article was found. The problem here was not my incompetence, but the systems in which the databases are located in, have been known to time out (thanks to the librarian for suggesting me to close out the session and start over again). Reading through this article really opened my eyes into how much “we” rely on the internet or some may just say “GOOGLE” for quick references, research projects, etc. Image having to drive to a library, search for the appropriate book/section to find out a simply question like, “when coca cola was founded.” I believe with our ability to find information at a click of a button, we have become lazy (yes, me too) and actually going through the library as mentioned above is an undesirable and daunting task.

I find Dr. Jenson’s perspective very interesting in the since that she acknowledges the Gen “Y” “X” “Z” or whatever class you’re in lack adequate research capabilities. I personally have search through the library for a few books in my years here and it does get very frustrating. I feel that Cecilia Peralta says it all when she stated this in her blog post, “I have survived all these years doing research with the direct help of the librarian EVERY time I started a new project. Pretty embarrassing; she must think I'm a bit slow.” We all have our reasons for not being adequate in the library, I don’t go there much, I’m too lazy to look, etc. but I believe as Dr. Jenson mentioned and so did John Mihm, students now a day’s NEED to be taught to go to the library and seek out hardcopies of book and get familiarize with the environment of a library. I personally feel a little bit more knowledgeable and better after reading this article and some of my fellow classmates’ blog post. Going to college should be about learning and collaborating to find answers to problems/situations like these.